Superheroes!: Capes, Cowls, and the Creation of Comic Book Culture

Superman, Batman, Spider-Man, Iron Man, Wonder Woman, the Avengers, the X-Men, Watchmen, and more: the companion volume to the PBS documentary series of the same name that tells the story of the superhero in American popular culture.

Superman: The High-Flying History of America's Most Enduring Hero

Seventy-five years after he came to life, Superman remains one of America’s most adored and enduring heroes. Now Larry Tye, the prize-winning journalist and New York Times best-selling author of Satchel, has written the first full-fledged history not just of the Man of Steel but of the creators, designers, owners, and performers who made him the icon he is today.

Supergods: What Masked Vigilantes, Miraculous Mutants, and a Sun God from Smallville Can Teach Us About Being Human

From one of the most acclaimed and profound writers in the world of comics comes a thrilling and provocative exploration of humankind's great modern myth: the superhero. In this exhilarating work of a lifetime, Grant Morrison draws on art, science, mythology, and his own astonishing journeys through this shadow universe to provide the first true history of the superhero - why they matter, why they will always be with us, and what they tell us about who we are... and what we may yet become.

The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic-Book Scare and How It Changed America

In the years between World War II and the emergence of television as a mass medium, American popular culture as we know it was first created in the bold, pulpy pages of comic books. The Ten-Cent Plague explores this cultural emergence and its fierce backlash while challenging common notions of the divide between "high" and "low" art.

The Caped Crusade: Batman and the Rise of Nerd Culture

Since his creation, Batman has been many things: a two-fisted detective; a planet-hopping gadabout; a campy pop-art sensation; a pointy-eared master spy; and a grim and gritty ninja of the urban night. For more than three-quarters of a century, he has cycled from a figure of darkness to one of lightness and back again; he's a bat-shaped Rorschach inkblot who takes on the various meanings our changing culture projects onto him.

The Ultimate History of Video Games: From Pong to Pokemon: The Story Behind the Craze that Touched Our Lives and Changed the World

The Ultimate History of Video Games reveals everything you ever wanted to know and more about the unforgettable games that changed the world, the visionaries who made them, and the fanatics who played them. From the arcade to television and from the PC to the handheld device, video games have entraced kids at heart for nearly 30 years. And author and gaming historian Steven L. Kent has been there to record the craze from the very beginning.

Amazing Fantastic Incredible: A Marvelous Memoir

Stan Lee - comic book legend and cocreator of Spider-Man, the X-Men, the Avengers, the Incredible Hulk, and a legion of other Marvel superheroes - shares his iconic legacy and the story of how modern comics came to be. Lee is a man who needs no introduction. The most legendary name in the history of comic books, he has been the leading creative force behind Marvel Comics and has brought to life - and into the mainstream - some of the world's best-known heroes and most infamous villains throughout his career.

The original Star Trek series debuted in 1966 and has spawned five TV series spin-offs and a dozen feature films, with an upcoming one from Paramount arriving in 2016. The Fifty-Year Mission is a no-holds-barred oral history of five decades of Star Trek, told by the people who were there. Hear from the hundreds of television and film executives, programmers, writers, creators, and cast as they unveil the oftentimes shocking story of Star Trek's ongoing 50-year mission.

The Fifty-Year Mission: The Next 25 Years: From the Next Generation to J. J. Abrams is an incisive, no-holds-barred oral history telling the story of post-Original Series Star Trek, told exclusively by the people who were there, in their own words - sharing the inside scoops they've never told before, unveiling the oftentimes shocking true story of the history of Star Trek, and chronicling the trials, tribulations, and tribbles that have remained deeply buried secrets until now.

Console Wars: Sega, Nintendo, and the Battle That Defined a Generation

A mesmerizing, behind-the-scenes business thriller that chronicles how Sega, a small, scrappy gaming company led by an unlikely visionary and a team of rebels, took on the juggernaut Nintendo and revolutionized the video-game industry. In 1990, Nintendo had a virtual monopoly on the video-game industry. Sega, on the other hand, was just a faltering arcade company with big aspirations and even bigger personalities. But all that would change with the arrival of Tom Kalinske, a former Mattel executive who knew nothing about video games and everything about fighting uphill battles.

Empire of Imagination: Gary Gygax and the Birth of Dungeons & Dragons

The life story of Gary Gygax, godfather of all fantasy adventure games, has been told only in bits and pieces. Michael Witwer has written a dynamic, dramatized biography of Gygax from his childhood in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, to his untimely death in 2008. Gygax's magnum opus, Dungeons & Dragons, would explode in popularity throughout the 1970s and '80s and irreversibly alter the world of gaming. D&D is the best-known, best-selling role-playing game of all time, and it boasts an elite class of alumni.

Unnatural Talent: Creating, Printing and Selling Your Comic in the Digital Age

The journey from being a "no-name" artist to finding your voice in the world of comics has always been a mystery - especially in the Internet age. While the publishing industry struggles to adapt to the rapidly changing digital world, independent artists now have the ability to build a successful and lucrative brand completely on their own with a little hard work and some Internet savvy.

Marvel's Black Widow: Forever Red

Natasha Romanoff is one of the world's most lethal assassins. Trained from a young age in the arts of death and deception, Natasha was given the title of Black Widow by Ivan Somodorov, her brutal teacher at the Red Room, Moscow's infamous academy for operatives.

Tough Sh-t: Life Advice from a Fat, Lazy Slob Who Did Good

Take one look at Kevin Smith: He's a balding fatty who wears a size XXL hockey jersey, shorts, and slippers year-round. Not a likely source for life advice. But take a second look at Kevin Smith: He changed filmmaking forever when he was twenty-four with the release of Clerks, and since then has gone on to make nine more profitable movies, runs his own production company, wrote a best-selling graphic novel, and has a beautiful wife and kids. So he must be doing something right.

TV (the Book): Two Experts Pick the Greatest American Shows of All Time

What's the greatest TV show ever? That debate reaches an epic conclusion in TV (the Book). Sepinwall and Seitz have identified and ranked the 100 greatest scripted shows in American TV history. Using a complex, obsessively all-encompassing scoring system, they've created a pantheon of top TV shows, each accompanied by essays delving into what made these shows great.

The Law of Superheroes

Could Superman sue if someone exposed his identity as Clark Kent? Is a life sentence for an immortal like Apocalypse "cruel and unusual punishment"? Is X-ray vision a violation of search and seizure laws? Is the Joker legally insane? And who foots the bill when a hero destroys a skyscraper or two while defending Metropolis? Fear not, gentle listener! The answers to these questions and a multitude more are contained inside this audiobook.

All Your Base Are Belong to Us: How Fifty Years of Videogames Conquered Pop Culture

Through the stories of gaming's greatest innovations and most-beloved creations, journalist Harold Goldberg captures the creativity, controversy - and passion - behind the videogame's meteoric rise to the top of the pop-culture pantheon. Over the last 50 years, video games have grown from curiosities to fads to trends to one of the world's most popular forms of mass entertainment.

How Star Wars Conquered the Universe: The Past, Present, and Future of a Multibillion Dollar Franchise

In How Star Wars Conquered the Universe, veteran journalist Chris Taylor traces the series from the difficult birth of the original film through its sequels, the franchise’s death and rebirth, the prequels, and the preparations for a new trilogy. Taylor provides portraits of the friends, writers, artists, producers, and marketers who labored behind the scenes to turn Lucas’s idea into a legend.

Batman and Psychology: A Dark and Stormy Knight

Batman is one of the most compelling and enduring characters to come from the Golden Age of Comics, and interest in his story has only increased through countless incarnations since his first appearance in Detective Comics #27 in 1939. Why does this superhero without superpowers fascinate us? What does that fascination say about us? Batman and Psychology explores these and other intriguing questions about the masked vigilante, including: Does Batman have PTSD? Why does he fight crime? Why as a vigilante? Why the mask, the bat, and the underage partner?

Demanding Respect: The Evolution of the American Comic Book

How is it that comic books - the once-reviled form of lowbrow popular culture - are now the rage for Hollywood blockbusters, the basis for best-selling video games, and the inspiration for literary graphic novels? In Demanding Respect, Paul Lopes immerses himself in the discourse and practices of this art and subculture to provide a social history of the American comic book over the last 75 years.

Of Dice and Men: The Story of Dungeons & Dragons and the People Who Play It

In Of Dice and Men, David Ewalt recounts the development of Dungeons & Dragons from the game’s roots on the battlefields of ancient Europe, through the hysteria that linked it to satanic rituals and teen suicides, to its apotheosis as father of the modern video-game industry. As he chronicles the surprising history of the game’s origins (a history largely unknown even to hardcore players) and examines D&D’s profound impact, Ewalt weaves laser-sharp subculture analysis with his own present-day gaming experiences.

The Secret History of Star Wars

The tale of Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, and the fall and redemption of Anakin Skywalker has become modern myth, an epic tragedy of the corruption of a young man in love into darkness, the rise of evil, and the power of good triumphing in the end. But it didn't start out that way. In this thorough account of one of cinema's most lasting works, Michael Kaminski presents the true history of how Star Wars was written, from its beginnings as a science fiction fairy tale to its development over three decades into the epic we now know, chronicling the methods, techniques, thought processes, and struggles of its creator.

The Daily Show (the AudioBook): An Oral History as Told by Jon Stewart, the Correspondents, Staff and Guests

This oral history takes the listener behind the curtain for all the show's highlights, from its origins as Comedy Central's underdog late-night program hosted by Craig Kilborn to Jon Stewart's long reign to Trevor Noah's succession, rising from a scrappy jester in the 24-hour political news cycle to become part of the beating heart of politics - a trusted source for not only comedy but also commentary, with a reputation for calling bullshit and an ability to effect real change in the world.

Publisher's Summary

Throughout this decades-long journey to becoming a multibillion-dollar enterprise, Marvel's identity has continually shifted, careening between scrappy underdog and corporate behemoth. As the company has weathered Wall Street machinations, Hollywood failures, and the collapse of the comic book market, its characters have been passed along among generations of editors, artists, and writers - also known as the celebrated Marvel "Bullpen". Entrusted to carry on tradition, Marvel's contributors - impoverished child prodigies, hallucinating peaceniks, and mercenary careerists among them - struggled with commercial mandates, a fickle audience, and, over matters of credit and control, one another.

For the first time, Marvel Comics reveals the outsized personalities behind the scenes, including Martin Goodman, the self-made publisher who forayed into comics after a get-rich-quick tip in 1939; Stan Lee, the energetic editor who would shepherd the company through thick and thin for decades; and Jack Kirby, the World War II veteran who'd co-created Captain America in 1940 and, 20 years later, developed with Lee the bulk of the company's marquee characters in a three-year frenzy of creativity that would be the grounds for future legal battles and endless debates.

Drawing on more than 100 original interviews with Marvel insiders then and now, Marvel Comics is a story of fertile imaginations, lifelong friendships, action-packed fistfights, reformed criminals, unlikely alliances, and third-act betrayals - a narrative of one of the most extraordinary, beloved, and beleaguered pop-cultural entities in America's history.

I couldn't have enjoyed this more... I collected comics for many years from the late '60's until the mid-90's when the blatant commercialism of multiple foil covers for the same book and horrible new art style (Yes, I mean you Liefeld) finally drove me away.

I was therefore already very familiar with all the names and events described herein, but having never read the fanzines or trade mags, was quite unfamiliar with the behind-the-scenes stories of WHY certain things happened the way they did.

This book covers that in a comprehensive and interesting way. It begins with the formation of the company in the early 1930's and progresses chronologically with the bulk of the narrative focusing on the 60's-80's. Narrator does a great job, and is very easy to listen to.

Some of the questions I received answers to are:Why did Captain America, Iron Man and Sub-Mariner suddenly all get solo titles in 1968?Whose dumb idea was it to give Spider-Man a "Spider-Mobile" in the 70's? and Why was Secret Wars such a terribly written story?

I lost a night of sleep because I couldn't stop listening to this book. If you've read Marvel comics, I give this my highest recommendation. If you haven't, I can see how it might be too esoteric for the uninitiated.

P.S. Forgive me for editorializing, but it's absolutely criminal what was done to Jack Kirby.

I have been a comic book reader since 1985 and while I've always been more in the DC camp, I enjoyed reading this history of the "House of Ideas." The narrator was engaging which is a must with non-fiction books like this.

Going in, I feared that this would be a one-sided story portraying Marvel in glorious, technicolor beauty. The author did a good job of highlighting both the high and low-lights of the publishing giant's 70+ year history. Most importantly, he didn't gloss over the image of Stan Lee, Marvel's ambassador and editor emeritus.

Lee seems is too often portrayed as a genius who single-handedly saved superhero comics from certain demise in the early 1960's while Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko, the true geniuses behind Marvel's core characters, get lost in the dust bin of history. Admittedly, Lee certainly contributed much to the rise of Marvel comics in the 1960's but his tireless self-promotion has gained him some undeserved credit in my opinion.

This book covers the history of Marvel from its founding as Timely Comics in 1939 through the first decade of the 21st century and does so "marvelously." I would highly recommend it to comics fans and those who wouldn't know Batman from Christian Bale.

I enjoyed the writing and the narration. But I must say that it was like complaint after complaint. Not enough freedom, Too much freedom. The arguments about who owned what. How sad that it came across to me that it was a slog to produce these comics and then it became a factory to make money. Only Stan Lee seemed to achieve any job satisfaction.

If you have an interest in the Comic Book industry or Marvel in particular then this is a book I highly recommend. This book is well written and unbelievably well paced for a business/creative history. It is a consistently good read for the full 18 hours.

Worth Noting:

• The book evenly presents the history of marvel, so if you are strictly, only really interested in one or two particular periods then you may find yourself skipping chapters, but even so, it's still a solid pick up

• This book is not about the purchase by Disney, although you do get a solid understanding of previous ownership changes

• There is little or no Celebrity Gossip from the sets of the films

• If the book has a theme, it's the question of creative ownership and how it has been dealt with by countless people from Jack and Stan to Steve Gerber and Rob Liefeld.

Maybe I've just read too many biographies that were amazing, so my standards are set too high. (Gabler's book on Walt Disney comes to mind). This book doesn't come close.

I was really wanting an easy to follow, compelling story, that kept me guessing and held my interest. What I got was just a bunch of facts, taped to the wall in chronological order. I could care less about any of these people, as the book never truly helped me get to know them. Sure, it talks about the tension and strife between some of the major players, but without sufficiently building up WHO these people actually are... WHAT MAKES THEM TICK... I just don't care about their arguments or problems.

This book is like an encyclopedia. Knowledgeable, but lacking in heart. If you're a die-hard Marvel fan, you may find it interesting, in terms of learning how they got to where they are. Odds are, you'll finish this book feeling like you just skimmed Marvel's Wikipedia page.

The story of how the fortunes of Marvel Comics unfolded is very interesting on a number of levels. After all, it is the story of real people and their struggles in a business that has changed radically in the last 50 years. Facing everything from changing markets to corporate takeover. However this book will be enjoyed most by Marvel Comics fans. I am one and have followed and collected Marvel Comics for perhaps too long. In the telling, many names of comics professional come up but the book does not have all that much time to duel on more than a handful. For me, that was not a problem because I knew the names and their work. But for someone who is not familiar with people like Roger Stern, John Buscema, Steve Ditko, John Byrne, Todd McFarlane and Joe Quesada as well as the superheroes they created and/or worked on it may get annoyingly hard to follow. (yes we all know Spider-man and the Avengers but how 'bout Captain Marvel and Howard the Duck?)

Having grown up with comic books, Marvel Comics: The Untold Story was fun and regulatory. The storytelling of Sean Howe really nailed the headspace of comic books readers.

The history is complete and everything is "exposed" as far as I can tell.

Stephen Hoye also does an excellent job at narration, but it look a bit to get used to the depreciated sound quality and his slightly hyperbolic delivery. Once settled in, I realised he was the perfect and obvious choice for this material.

One caveat (and complaint) is the course language. I nearly quit a few times because of it. Hence only 4 stars overall.

...you may enjoy this book. But if you're not, it may not be very interesting. As a fan myself, I personally was riveted. In the last third or so of the book, I felt sad at what I heard. There are good reasons as to why the comics of the 1960s-80s were often quite good and the 90s so dreadful, and they are delineated in gory detail in the book.

In some ways I regret taking in this book, because any illusions I had about Marvel were shattered. I will never again be able to watch a Marvel movie - or read the comics for that matter - without being aware of the stunning, greedy injustices that were perpetrated upon longtime creators who worked at Marvel, most notably Jack Kirby.

Quite recently, a judge ruled that Disney/Marvel owns the characters that Kirby created. In another ruling, the creator of Ghost Rider, Gary Friedrich, was actually ordered to pay Disney 17K! Even though Friedrich created it - it says so very plainly on the splash page of the inaugural issue - it belongs to Disney/Marvel.

If you move over to another medium, say, if Stephen King writes a novel, does the company that publishes the book own the rights to the book?

Many of the ideas that have become substrate to the sci-fi and super hero movies seen today were created by chain smoking guys in tiny apartments in New York City decades ago, for very little money. They did not retain rights to the characters they invented.

The Avengers Movie of 2012, which mostly features characters created by Jack Kirby, had the biggest opening weekend of any movie ever in North America. It was also the fastest film in history to hit the $1 billion mark, and ultimately grossed $1.51 billion worldwide.

Kirby's family won't be seeing any of that money; nor would Jack himself, were he alive today.

I liked hearing the untold story on what brought Marvel comics together in the first place and I love an untold story that was never told before.

0 of 0 people found this review helpful

Mrs

Wirral, United Kingdom

12/14/15

Overall

Performance

Story

"No thread to keep you engaged."

I find really good histories of companies or historical figures have a thread and one story links well in to another. This was missing in this and so it just because a series of events which have little bearing on each other. I just drifted through most of the book. It had its moments but not enough to hold my interest unfortunately.

0 of 0 people found this review helpful

MR H S G CHAMBERS

3/4/15

Overall

Performance

Story

"few inaccuratecies about Marville"

could have done with more background on the none big characters and seemed to miss the whole Marvel Japan and Marvel UK and hardly mentioned Alan Moore or the massive effect of Watchmen and adult comics like American Splender or love and rockets on the comic market or any mention of Sam Raimi's first Marvel Comic film Darkman or emergence of hero films due to the Matrix film or any mention of the 90's hero films like the rocketeer Dick Tracy the shadow or the phantom or any mention of how batman and robin nearly killed hero films and worst for me no real mention of the computer games made with marvel character, it's an ok book it could have been better if sliced in to 4 books covering the 4 ages of comics

0 of 9 people found this review helpful

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